On (Not) Writing

I’ve slipped back over here to my blog because I’m having trouble writing. You could say I’m s t u c k — mired in self-doubt.

Gluey, icky burdensome thoughts are inside my head as I go through my days — has it been a whole week — of NOT WRITING.

How can this be, after all this time? I’m heavy with disappointment in myself.

I even have the excuse of carpel tunnel (I had to look that up to spell it.) My right hand isn’t working correctly, aches all the way up my arm, goes numb, even typing out each l e t t e r hurts just a little. Sometimes a lot.

I have read, reread, rewritten my poems. Because nothing new is coming.

In that valley is where Mary Magdalene comes looking for them, at a milepost way deep in the shadows. Their journey back toward apostleship, toward being the church, begins in grief. It was Mary Magdalene, striding into the valley of the shadow of death to knock, once more, on a door and proclaim the good news: “I have seen the Lord” — the Lord who will not let the grave claim you who are trembling inside the prison of grief or depression. Grief is one more place on the journey from baptism to the new Jerusalem. Let the one who poured the waters of promise on your head so long ago — let that one sanctify your grief and turn it into ministry. He has been doing that since the days of Abraham and Sarah. Since the days of Peter, who denied he had ever known Jesus of Nazareth. That is the good news of the gospel. Thanks be to God. Amen. —Edgar Moore

There is something in these words that is for me. That winding path I traveled over the last ten years holds grief and glory. That is where the story will begin, if I can find it.

Melody

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer – Barbara Kingsolver